The Psychology InA Beautiful Mind

The psychology in A Beautiful Mind (the movie) provides a valuable lesson for the practice of self awareness by ordinary people. Artistically differing from the actual events, it is a film, which convincingly uses the visual medium to portray stress and mental illness within one person's mind.

The storyline supplants auditory symptoms with visual delusions to narrate the story of the paranoid schizophrenia developed by John Forbes Nash, a Nobel Laureate in Economics. It was an illness, which had been intensified by the anxiety felt by Nash, about the pain suffered by his wife and friends due to his mental condition.

Even as he took medication to suppress the symptoms, Nash is shown returning to normal life by becoming self aware. The visually presented psychological symptoms in the movie effectively convey the barriers to distinguishing subconscious patterns within the mind.

Nash was unable to
distinguish between reality and his delusions. Normal people also fail to
detect the emotional changes in their viewpoints.

Conscious awareness of
mental events follow their actual occurrence in the mind.

The delusions of Nash used
the vast mental powers of his brain to mislead him. Even for
ordinary people, emotional outbursts appear fully justified.

Emotions restrict
viewpoints.

It was a major crisis, which caused the
RI of Nash to see reality.

Nash was largely healed, when he became self aware.

Delusions continued to
haunt Nash.

Observing the symptoms of
irrational behavior helped Nash.

Psychology
In A
Beautiful Mind –
Competition & ConflictThe
primary problem for Nash was his inability to distinguish between
reality and his delusions. Even normal people fail to distinguish the
concrete emotional changes in their viewpoints during the course of
an average day. You may be fuming with resentment one moment and
joyful, the next. These hidden shifts in moods and attitudes have a
clear cause. They happen, because the control of your mind shifts
between myriad competing and conflicting intelligences. These
intelligences were assembled over millions of years to become the
present triune
human brain.

At
the lowest level, a reptilian brain controls primitive functions like
breathing, hunger and heartbeat. At the next level, a mammalian brain
controls the system through love and despair, compassion and shame.
At the highest level exists the Real “I,” (RI),
a wise human level prefrontal brain. These subconscious intelligences
offer competing strategies for your life. Unfortunately, your
mind switches
controlsbetween
these entities without your conscious permission. In the case of
Nash, he suffered more because the vibrant delusions generated by his
emotions took frequent control of his system.

Psychology
In A
Beautiful Mind –
Awareness Happens LaterDuring
his delusional periods, Nash saw an imaginary room mate, Charles. The
movie audience shares the delusion of Nash. Charles is shown as a
real person, who greets him on checking into his hostel room when
joining college. Nash did not consciously create his delusion.
Actually, it began in his mind 350 milliseconds before Nash actually
saw Charles. Benjamin Libet discovered this time interval between
conscious awareness and the beginning of brain activity.

He
studied subjects who voluntarily pressed a button, while noting the
position of a dot on a computer screen, which shifted its position
every 43 milliseconds. The noted moment of depressing the button was
the moment of conscious awareness; the exact instant the subject
thought the button was pressed. Each time, Libet had also timed the
beginning of motor neuron activity in the brains of his subjects. He
discovered that awareness occurred 350 milliseconds AFTER the
beginning of motor activity. Nash was merely a witness to the events
occurring in his mind. If Nash was to heal himself, his RI had to
understand that a delusional state of mind had already taken
control.

Psychology
In A
Beautiful Mind –
Hoodwinking RINash's
delusions had a complex character of their own. His imaginary room
mate, Charles, also had a niece, a little girl named Marcie. William
Parcher, a DoD official, was another imaginary figure. Parcher
assigned Nash to look for patterns in magazines and newspapers, in
order to prevent a Soviet plot. Nash spent hours in pointless
research and deposited his "top secret" reports in a secret
mailbox. The first conflict between reality and delusions occurred
when Alicia, his wife, confronted him with his documents, unopened,
which she had retrieved from the mailbox. The evidence made Nash
realize that he was hallucinating. Up to that time, his RI accepted
these delusions to be truth, because they were convincingly
presented.

Negative
emotions use the vast power of your mind to meet their objectives.
They can convincingly distort the truth without your awareness. The
primary objective of, say, anger is to destroy opponents. The emotion
is designed by nature to make you fight more fiercely. Without your
conscious permission, anger will initiate past behaviors, which
fueled your resentment. It will impel you to provoke your opponents
so that their increased hostility intensifies your anger. Or, anger
will subtly guide you to fail in your project to intensify your
resentment against fate, which “destined” you to failure.

Just
like the delusions suffered by Nash, your responses to anger will not
be rational behaviors. Emotional intelligences will present you with
powerful arguments to support their objectives. Self awareness is the
process of discovering the damning evidence, which proves to your RI
that your behavior is not rational. It is the skill of consciously
identifying your emotional outbursts. You can gradually become
familiar with the irrational viewpoints of each of the negative
intelligences, which operate within your mind.

Psychology
In A
Beautiful Mind –
Emotions Limit ViewpointsThe
delusions of Nash were triggered by his negative feelings. Emotions
have the capacity to restrict your access to your memories.
An intuitive
processwithin
your nervous system operates by eliminating alternative
possibilities. An animal cannot afford to remain frozen between one
decision to drink water and another to eat grass. If a decision to
drink is taken, the system instantly inhibits its hunger demands.

So
also, fear inhibits its option to stay back and fight. The animal's
intuition recalls memories of escape routes, while suppressing
memories of previous successes. Its mind provides memories in context
to enable it to cope with its immediate tasks. Hidden
emotionsforcibly
redirect your mind without your awareness. With anger, your working
memory also tends to decrease, making you lose sight of the immediate
past. In the case of Nash, the delusions inhibited all those real
life viewpoints, which should have been obvious to a brilliant
scientist.

Psychology
In A
Beautiful Mind –
Living With IrrationalityFor
the treatment of his problems, Nash was subjected to a series of
insulin shock therapy sessions. He was released on condition that he
would take antipsychotic medication. But, the drugs seriously
affected both his family and academic life. Because of the new
problems, Nash secretly stopped taking his medication, triggering a
relapse of his psychosis. His condition became worse and,
unintentionally, he harmed his wife Alicia and his baby.

The
incident occurred, because the negative emotions of Nash were still
actively competing with his RI, his rational self. Even ordinary
people may consider their irrational behavior to be more practical.
The temper tantrums continue, or severe grief persists with avoidance
behavior. Hidden resentments or excessive responses to grief continue
to harm their social life. While being aware of their irrational
streaks, they continue, since their RI is yet to decide whether the
disadvantages really outweigh the need to control their negative
emotions.

Psychology
In A
Beautiful Mind –
A Convincing Need For ChangeThe
near accident with his wife and child changed the balance of power in
his mind. Nash was suddenly faced with the prospect of being
permanently committed to an institution. As Alicia tried to flee and
report his behavior, Nash stepped in front of her car to prevent her
from leaving. At that critical moment, a sudden insight appeared to
heal him permanently. He said "She never gets old." Nash
had realized that during his hallucinations over the years, Marcee
had continued to be a little girl.

It
was a single lightning flash, which illuminated his entire mental
landscape. The discovery was partly accidental and partly forced on
him by his anxiety to avoid being committed. It is usually a
traumatic incident, caused by emotionally negative behaviors, which
cause people to have a look at themselves. An alcoholic has to become
convinced that he has a problem, before he will submit to treatment.
Usually, it is when a person encounters a significant problem that
her RI finally decides that her negative emotions need to be
controlled.

Psychology
In A
Beautiful Mind –
Self Awareness IlluminatesNash
realized that although all three people seemed completely real, they
were in fact a part of his hallucinations. The human mind has small
emotional partitions and an immensely wise RI, the prefrontal
intelligence. RI normally accepts emotional viewpoints as the truth.
It is self awareness, which enables RI to look down into the
emotional partitions of the mind. In meditation, the Buddhists advise
“staring back” at your thoughts.

Matthieu
Ricard, a respected Buddhist monk said: "One may wonder what
people do in retreats, sitting for eight hours a day. They
familiarize themselves with a new way of dealing with the arising of
thoughts. When you start getting used to recognizing thoughts as they
arise, it is like rapidly spotting someone you know in a crowd. When
a powerful thought or anger arises, you recognize it. That helps you
to avoid being overwhelmed by this thought." It is self
awareness, which exposes the ridiculous aspects of emotional
viewpoints. It is the first step to peace of mind.

Psychology
In A
Beautiful Mind –
The Constant StruggleNash
could not avoid his delusions. They continued to haunt him, with
Charles mocking him for cutting off their friendship. His
hallucinations constantly reappeared, distracting him and
disconcerting his colleagues. His solution was to treat his “demons”
as though they were real. He thanked Charles for being his best
friend over the years, and said a tearful goodbye to Marcee. He told
Parcher that he would not speak to him anymore. Gradually they
troubled him less.

While
self awareness can throw light on emotional irrationality, many of
the behaviors will be triggered repeatedly by “speed
dial circuits,”
which respond to stressful situations. Negative emotions include
fear, sadness, disgust, boredom, contempt, embarrassment, guilt, and
shame. These emotions may have a rational basis. The irrational
impulses they trigger need to be acknowledged. Physical and mental
exercises, which calm the mind, are necessary to prevent a relapse
into old habits. But, only self awareness can inform you, when you
relapse into your old habits.

Psychology
In A
Beautiful Mind –
Observing The SymptomsNash
had to prevent new delusions from entering his mind. He used to
humorously check with his students and colleagues whether they too
could see his new visitors. He was checking for reality. Negative
emotions always distort viewpoints and are accompanied by subtle
feelings of discomfort. Overpowering anger is usually accompanied by
symptoms such as feeling hot and flushed, hairs standing up, becoming
hyperactive, a racing heartbeat, sudden tension in your arms, neck or
shoulders, or the onset of a headache.

While
minor irritations may not trigger such symptoms, you may be able to
discover subtle symptoms, which accompany your anger. Can the
offender be aptly described as a “bitch,” or an “a**hole?” If
so, you are angry. Identifying such descriptions in your mind can
bring in an element of humor to release your tension. Each person
responds differently to each emotion. Those symptoms will appear a
few milliseconds before you realize that you are angry. Identifying
the physical symptom is the quickest way of stilling your negative
emotions. Like Nash, you need to be constantly aware of the subtle
tricks of the mind.

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